Has Oliver Kay, the Times's chief football correspondent, been the victim of a hoax?

His byline is on a story, billed as an exclusive, that is published across three pages of his paper today. But is it quite as it seems?

On the back page his story, Sheikhs shake world game, reports that the world's leading football clubs "are to be offered enormous financial inducements to participate in a 24-team tournament every two years in Qatar and neighbouring Gulf states".

This breathtaking initiative, said to be backed by the Qatari royal family and called the Dream Football League, would involve clubs such as Barcelona and Manchester United being offered as much as £175m to take part.

But it ain't necessarily so – not according to a piece on Yahoo's Eurosport. It claims the "inspiration" for the story comes from a spoof article on the French website Les Cahiers du Football.

Eurosport claims that almost all the details in the Times can be found in Cahiers du Football's 10 March "story". And furthermore, the site has admitted via Twitter that its story "came entirely from our imagination".

But Kay has since responded to the Eurosport article with a tweet saying that Cahiers du Football "100% NOT the source of my story".

Cahiers du Football responded: "Maybe your 'source' has got his 'information' from our spoof, and fooled you. We ALL made it up."

Kay answered back: "It's a nice theory. Wrong, but nice."

And Cahiers du Football replied: "We made it all up, including the picture ... We know nothing about your source, if it exists."

In another tweet, it said: "Then we have invented something that was about to come true 15 hrs later. We're kind of geniuses. Should sell betting tips."

In a tweet last night, Kay did seem a little tentative about the credibility of his scoop by tweeting: "Often when you write a big story, you're desperate for it to come off so you 'look good'. Not so sure this time."

Not so sure, eh? Well, though he denies any link to Cahiers du Football, it has to be said that the graphic used in the Times to illustrate Kay's story is exactly the same as the one on the Cahiers du Football site. Could it be another remarkable coincidence?

In Kay's favour, despite no one else in world football having been cited to stand up his story, it may be that he is so far ahead of the pack, he has revealed a deep dark secret and landed a genuine and remarkable world exclusive. Maybe...

Sources: the Times/Yahoo! Sport/Les Cahiers du Football